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Customer khata, done properly, limits, reminders, statements
The register in the drawer was always going to cause an argument. With a digital khata built into the POS, every credit customer gets a real account instead: a limit, a running balance, payments applied oldest-bill-first, and a printed statement whenever they ask for one.
Paper khata doesn't lose money. It loses relationships.
A page gets skipped. A figure is smudged. A cashier writes 4,200 and remembers 2,400. Six weeks later a customer you have known for years is standing at your counter, certain he is right, and he might be. There is no record either of you trusts.
- Entries missed during a rush
- No limit, balances grow unnoticed
- Nobody knows which bill a payment settled
- Reminders depend on someone remembering
- One spilled tea and the year is gone
- Every credit sale recorded at the point of billing
- A hard limit per customer, with manager override
- Payments applied oldest-bill-first, automatically
- WhatsApp reminders sent on a schedule you set
- Statement printed or PDF'd in five seconds
A khata app is a start. A khata in your POS is the fix.
Standalone khata and udhaar apps beat paper, balances you can't lose, reminders you can send. But they share the register's core weakness: they don't know about your sales.
Every credit sale has to be typed in a second time, by hand, so the same missed-entry problem simply moves to a phone. The moment it gets busy, the app and the till drift apart. When the khata is built into the point of sale, a credit sale updates the customer's balance the instant the bill is finalised, enforces their limit and links to the actual invoice, so a disputed figure can be traced to a specific order. Comparing options? Our Easy Khata alternative guide covers when an app is enough and when it isn't.
Assign the sale to a customer instead of taking cash. The running balance updates and the invoice is attached.
Part or full, recorded against the account with the cashier's name. No re-adding a column by hand.
Every order and payment in one list, balance at the top, printed, or a PDF on WhatsApp.
One view of outstanding balances, so collection is a decision, not an archaeology project.
Six things a real khata system needs
All of it works offline, because credit customers don't wait for your ISP.
Each customer has an account and a ceiling. Reach it and the terminal stops the cashier, not the owner three weeks later.
Bill to the account in one tap from the payment screen. The order closes properly, so the kitchen and reports are unaffected.
Payments clear the oldest bills first by default, so the statement reads chronologically and disputes have nowhere to start.
Take money up front and let it cover the next orders automatically, useful for corporate accounts and regulars on a monthly arrangement.
A thermal statement across the counter, or a PDF on WhatsApp. Every collection carries a note and the name of the staff member who took it.
Balance reminders go out by WhatsApp or SMS on your schedule, in Urdu or English. Nobody has to be the person who chases, the system is.
The regular with a monthly account
A nearby office orders lunch four days a week. They don't want to pay per order and you don't want to chase forty small bills, so they get an account with a limit and monthly settlement.
Every order is billed to the account at the counter, no separate register, no reliance on anyone's memory. On the 28th, a reminder goes to their WhatsApp with the balance. When their runner arrives with cash, the cashier records the collection under her own name, and the payment clears the oldest bills first.
If they ever ask what a figure was for, you print the statement and both of you read the same thing. That is the entire feature.
Because SureTill is offline-first, the khata lives on your in-store server, you can bill to an account and take payments right through load-shedding, and everything reconciles across branches when the connection is back. A customer known at one branch is known at all of them, with one balance rather than three partial ones.
Enter existing customers with their current balances as opening figures, start billing credit to accounts from a chosen date, and keep the old register for a week or two as a comfort blanket. Within a fortnight the paper book is a backup nobody opens, and the number you tell a customer finally matches the one they remember.
Khata questions
Something not covered? Ask on WhatsApp, you'll get a straight answer, not a sales script.
What is a digital khata?
An electronic version of the udhaar or credit register. It keeps a running balance for each customer, records every credit sale and payment automatically, and shows who owes what at any moment, replacing a paper ledger that's easy to lose, miswrite or forget.
Why is a khata in the POS better than a khata app?
A standalone app doesn't know about your sales, so you enter every credit transaction twice. In a POS-based khata, a credit sale updates the balance automatically at billing, enforces the credit limit and links to the real invoice, one system, no double entry, no gaps.
Can I set a different credit limit for each customer?
Yes. Each account has its own limit. When the outstanding balance reaches it, the terminal warns the cashier and requires a manager override to continue on credit, so the decision is made deliberately, at the counter, by someone allowed to make it.
How are payments applied to old bills?
Oldest bill first, by default. You can allocate a payment to a specific bill if a customer insists, and the statement records which choice was made.
Does khata work when the internet is down?
Yes, accounts, balances and collections all live in the local database on your in-store server, so credit sales and payments behave normally offline. Only the WhatsApp and SMS reminders need connectivity, and they queue until it returns.
How do I move my existing register into SureTill?
Enter your existing customers with their current balances as opening figures, start billing credit sales to accounts from a chosen date, and keep the old register for a week or two as a backup. We help with this during setup.
Bring your khata register to the demo.
We'll put a few real accounts into SureTill live and print their statements, so you can see the difference on your own numbers.